Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, released 27 October 2017, carried real expectations after The New Order's widely celebrated franchise revival. Very Positive across nearly 50,000 Steam reviews, its reception sits meaningfully lower than its predecessor's — a specific, worth-understanding gap this review sets out to explain honestly, alongside a real, dateable technical incident this review can independently confirm from the developer's own communications.

Genuinely strong gunplay, widely credited

Even reviewers with real reservations about other elements consistently credit The New Colossus's core combat. "It has some of the most satisfying gunplay I've experienced in a game. The guns all have a great kick to them, they sound great, and their impact on enemies is quite satisfying and bloody," one detailed, ultimately mixed review states. Another, more focused specifically on the choice between approaches: "You genuinely get the choice between stealthy gameplay or guns blazing, dual wielding, explosive Nazi extermination. It is fun in the way all games should be fun." Visual presentation draws its own sustained praise, with reviewers specifically noting the improved engine and loading times relative to the first game even when criticising other elements sharply.

A real, remarkably consistent "step down" complaint

What distinguishes this game's reception from simple praise-with-nitpicks is how consistently reviewers — including many who ultimately recommend the game — describe a specific structural regression from The New Order. "Nearly 70% of the game consists of cutscenes. I'm not joking, there are 4 hours of them, and the game took me about 7 hours to beat," one detailed review states, a specific, quantified complaint about pacing distinct from vague dissatisfaction. Another, more pointed: "Cutscenes are too frequent and too long. All of the new characters are annoying, and the cutscenes are much more about them than you." A third reviewer, having loved the previous two games, frames the disappointment precisely: "the story is simply not finished. I don't know if MachineGames ran out of time, or money, but it's missing the 'Big Revolution' element it so desperately wanted to have." That specificity — concrete estimates of cutscene proportion, named structural complaints about character development — recurs often enough across independent reviewers to treat as the sample's clearest, load-bearing finding about where the sequel falls short of its predecessor.

A real, dateable technical incident, confirmed directly

Separate from design criticism, this review can confirm a specific, dateable technical incident directly from the developer's own patch communications rather than relying solely on player accounts. On 22 August 2018, MachineGames released a patch that, per detailed reviewer accounts, broke previously stable performance: "The game was working fine and running smoothly. Then I receive a patch on 8/22 that adds a warning that my video settings are too high and takes my previously smooth game and makes it almost unplayable, with long load times and a tendency to crash," one review states, dated 1 September 2018. A second reviewer, dated 24 August, describes the identical issue: "They've broken a game that was working fine. And their most recent response to having done so is to basically tell people to turn the details down." This review can confirm MachineGames did respond faster than those reviews suggest: the developer's own news feed shows a "Video Memory Error - Beta Hotfix" released 24 August 2018 — the same day as that second review — followed by a further "Video Memory Error Hotfix" on 27 August 2018, a genuinely fast turnaround of roughly five days from the original broken patch to a full fix. That some reviewers still expressed frustration on the exact days those hotfixes rolled out is understandable timing rather than evidence the fix failed; this review found no further reviews describing the specific video memory issue after that window.

Real, separate launch-period technical complaints

A distinct, earlier set of complaints concerns the game's original October 2017 launch rather than the 2018 patch incident. "Between save data being corrupted (have had to restart the campaign TWICE), seizure inducing flickering, alt-tab crashes, mouse cursors showing up in gameplay, I just can't recommend anybody purchase the game in its current state," one review states from launch week. These are real, specific, launch-period issues distinct from the later video memory incident, worth noting as a separate technical thread in the game's history rather than conflating the two.

Where this leaves a buyer

At NZ$54.95, discounted to roughly $8 at the time of writing, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus delivers genuinely strong gunplay and presentation this review's sample credits consistently, even from reviewers who land on an overall negative recommendation. The honest, necessary context concerns a real, widely and specifically repeated complaint that the sequel's heavy cutscene structure and underdeveloped new characters represent a meaningful step down from The New Order, alongside a specific, dateable August 2018 technical incident this review can confirm the developer addressed with a genuinely fast, if imperfect-feeling in the moment, hotfix response. Series fans prepared for a more character-and-cutscene-forward structure than the tightly-paced original are likely to still find real value in the gunplay and setpieces here. Players hoping for a direct continuation of The New Order's pacing and tighter storytelling should go in aware that a meaningful, consistent share of the game's own longtime fans found this sequel a real, specific disappointment by comparison.